


Filth

by Burmecian



Category: Aladdin (1992)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2013-07-05
Updated: 2013-07-05
Packaged: 2017-12-17 18:49:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,480
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/870829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Burmecian/pseuds/Burmecian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jafar and Iago live by three rules. What are these rules and how did they come to live by them? A story of corruption.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Filth

Even then, the man who eventually became known as the Grand Vizier of Agrabah was somewhat manic.

 

After spending his tender years under the wing of many learned masters, absorbing all there was to know in the useful sciences and arts, he had become a master himself. Once he had that title conferred upon him he wasted no time in taking his books and teaching materials and setting off to make his mark in a new city. 

 

He met with immediate success and posted his exorbitant fees:

Geography for an Apple!

Astronomy for a Fish Head!

Letters for a Fig!

Alchemy for a Loaf of Bread!

 

It was hard, he supposed, for anyone to make a living in such a cutthroat city, but he had no time to weep over his fellow man when his own ribs were showing. From time to time, he would look up from the mud and see the palatial homes above--and then promptly see the mud again when some well-to-do's horse carelessly knocked him over. It was always a veritable circus when someone was knocked over into the mud. And the dirtier and uglier they were, the more riotous it was. 

 

He'd lost most of his childhood rearing in the mud. When he got food, he'd eat it like it'd be his last. If he was mad, he'd rail at the top of his lungs. If he was afraid, he'd cry out for relief. He shoved and elbowed his equals and openly spit vitriol at 'better people'. He was artless, he was shameless, he was crude. And the other people around him were artless, shameless and crude, so there was no point in behaving otherwise. 

 

He didn't write out his fees as much as he shouted them, hawking his services alongside a thousand other shouting people hawking just as loud. There weren't many teachers in the mud, so he got the bulk of the business: he ate enough to make it from day to day. To get anyone's attention down here he had to be the loudest, the most eager, the most desperate.

 

There was a clear disconnect between how he behaved and how he spoke, betraying his birth. He couldn't rid himself of his articulateness. On the other hand, he was too unsophisticated to know artifice. 

 

His fellow rabble didn't care he talked high or that he was always lugging around a stack of books with him--no one cared about distinctions, they were all hungry and all squalid. 

 

 At first he railed unabashedly with his disgruntled fellows, angry and proud and rude. Eventually he learned to hold his tongue in the presence of 'better people'. Not because he feared a beating--in this city annoying but harmless insults to a person were nowhere on the level of a damaging insult to property--But because he was ashamed. Because the 'better people' laughed--not at his fellow rabble, but at _him._  

 

For the clean and well-dressed, it was more perverse to hear traces of culture and petty aristocracy from the rancid mouth of a dirt-eating cockroach. They would stare at him, as if they were waiting for him to stand chairs on his nose or jump through a flaming hoop. So to protect his pride, the only thing he had worth anything, he'd lower his eyes and play mute until they had passed, and then he'd let loose all of his spite and mocking, articulate fury at them while clutching his day's precious fee.

 

His students were slightly better down-and-outs like him, some of which he believed to be no smarter than a sack of wheat, but he took it as a personal insult if they didn't at least, with his instruction, improve their meager mind by at least a smidgen. 

 

These transactions were guaranteed. He'd teach them, and they would feed him. He'd go to their living spaces in slightly better parts of town, and he'd return to the overcrowded mud patch.

 

As his reputation for being a learned and patient man grew, he attracted better students. These students didn't care much for his tactics to get his students--wild gestures, exaggerated subservience, in-your-face blunt offers of lessons for food. They didn't much care for the shabby state of his books, either.  He recognized they were turned off and tapered his brusque methods, and took more care to keep his books out of the filth as much as that was even possible.  He recognized that 'better' people wanted him to act better to merit the increased payment.

 

But he didn't have to act--he was a serious-minded _scholar_. So he recalled his less crude school days and started to shake off the habits he'd learned down here. 

 

As a result he once again tasted lamb and for a brief moment he fooled himself into thinking he ate better than the Sultan in far-off Agrabah.

 

But the lamb was elusive. Less crude or not, he was back to bread, bread he could break the City Guards' knees with, if he felt like it. He often felt tempted. They'd been squeezing the rabble, both high people that had fallen and people who had always been low. Tax in kind. Give up bread instead of money, since no one had money. Sometimes the guards, by order of the local official, moved them so they could build this-and-that or lord so-and-so could trot through on his finely groomed horse. 

 

 But---he kept quiet and out of the guards' way and did what they told them to do--he had spit and fire--- they had swords.

 

The toughness of his bread was making him irritated. And when people are irritated they do things to stay irritated. 

 

His mind went back to his childhood. Less hungry days, good cloth days. His father was an official. He was sent to school with other minor nobles' sons. Aside from the vast compendium of knowledge he acquired, he carried away two life lessons as well. There are no limits to what man can learn, and children are cruel. He would like to think that his fellow students were jealous of his bright mind and good looks, but he wasn't an idiot. No one would ever envy a child with the face of a horse.

 

 Long and vertical, with an upper lip that stuck out much farther than his lower lip. The space between his nose and lips was enormous. His nose sloped upward before it plunged down and then protruded out. When he smiled he had too much teeth. At school his student peers would zero on this horse face, and ignore his beautiful--no, gorgeous eyes. 

 

But back to the bread. He'd gotten it from his latest transaction with an old woman. But she neither endeavored to make Gold, nor seek the fabled Elixir, (an alchemic goal which, odd as it was, didn't interest him much either.) nor did she want to know anything about the other sciences, either. 

 

He got confused, and then irritated. What had he lugged his books all the way here for?

 

"This isn't Alchemy, you do realize that---"

 

The old woman nodded.

 

"Please, make a poultice for my grandson."

 

"But you paid for lessons--you don't want me to teach you anything?" 

 

The old woman smiled a bit. Her jowls drooped with embarrassment.

 

"I...only asked for lessons so you'd stop by. They say you're a learned man but I can't go to a real doctor... I'm sorry for deceiving you."

 

He waved it off.

 

"Making a poultice is simple. You don't need me for this.."

 

The old woman's eyes pleaded. 

 

Even though the hag had essentially tricked him into performing services that was not in their agreement, he left the bread and his books went out to obtain the materials for the poultice. 

 

"Herbs, huh? you're a teacher, right? So teach me somethin'. Then the herbs're yours."

 

So he taught this second one and secured the herbs. He went to someone different to obtain a mortar and then to someone different to obtain a pestle. As were the only things he had on hand regularly were books, he only taught on a theoretical level, even something as hands-on and intensive as Alchemy. He certainly couldn't afford a laboratory or any equipment. But, the theoretical was good enough, and before the old woman's strange, non-academic request there was no need for him to go out of his way to bargain for additional materials.

 

He ground up the herbs while walking to save time, and when he returned to her corner in the early twilight he ducked in with the poultice and applied it to the child's inflamed boils. He couldn't tell if the child was feeling better, but the old woman's look of gratitude confirmed his competency in the matter.

 

As he turned to leave the old woman's corner, he couldn't help but ponder. Why in this city of opportunism and self-preservation would anyone think of helping someone else? 

 

Strange. 

 

"Are you...married?"

 

"Pardon me--what--?"

 

The old woman laughed, embarrassed. "Dear me, where did that question come from?" she turned back to her grandson, patting him and kissing him on the head. The grandson laughed and hugged his grandmother. The scholar looked uncomfortable with the display, and shifted closer to the rough linen curtain that was the entryway. He suspected that now that he had rendered services for the old woman that gave her free reign to ask him intrusive questions, and treat him as her inferior in age.  "Maybe you haven't found the right person yet. But you're still young, there's still time. I won't hold you up any further--go run along with your friends."

 

Now she was speaking to him as if he were three. He was really tempted to undo the relationship he had just established with the intrusive old woman and tell her off. But--that would hurt his chances for referrals in this area. A poor but clean area. Indeed, he must be stinking up the place..So he just left without saying anything.

 

\----

 

He returned home, slumped against a wall and a thousand other people. What he could see of the night sky between the rooftops looked rather forlorn. He raised his arched black eyebrows, leaned the pronounced hollow his cheek on his bony fingers in thought. He'd spent three years around these people, and only now he was starting to realize that what drew them close---within any proximity of each other was a _shared condition_. Even now, he only relied on them for their body heat so as to not freeze during the cold nights. 

 

He came to a realization that wouldn't have bothered him at all before, not before that vile old woman planted a seed in his head.

 

_I am--alone..._

 

\---

 

The next day, his patience with said vile old woman had paid off, and he got another student from that area of the city. This one could hardly wait to get rid of him, though. A slightly nicer sheet and a basket in the middle of the living space that the student sat on gave him full license to look down on his grime-covered teacher. The scholar was glad to be rid of him, even though he was paid a sizable loaf of bread for his humiliation.

 

"No entry! Go another way!" 

 

A City Guard blocked his usual route home--or rather, a giant pile of clay rubble from a collapsed building blocked it. The crowds swept in other directions, trying to find an alternate route. Some were made late by the delay and were running, kicking up dust around everyone's sweaty calves.

 

Everyone had escaped beforehand, except a cat apparently, because he heard a little girl wailing for it as he caught himself up in the moving crowd. The crowd was tightly-packed and the only way to move was forward. As the momentum of the crowd carried him along, he saw the only route back to his mud patch was through the bazaar. 

 

He'd been evading his intermittent retinue----an obnoxious crowd of bloated flies. He gobbled his bread in one bite so they wouldn't swarm his meal. His broad, sloping nose moved at the scent of a mass of other animals, squeezed in cages and suffocating in their own filth. The owner was busily sharpening a blade on a cutting stone.

 

Upon seeing all these exotic animals that would only be a good buy for the wealthy, he saw this as good a chance as ever to express hid discontent. He set down his books. Rolling his head and bony shoulders back, he took on an appraising look. He stroked his greasy beard as if he couldn't decide to purchase the monkey, the chameleon, the feline, or all three. 

 

The shop-owner ignored the squalid beggar, still scraping that blade on the stone. A quite unpleasant sound. 

 

Another unpleasant sound as someone nearby screeched that Polly wanted a cracker. The muddy scholar's eyes shifted around. That screech again. He scrunched up his long face and stuck a dirt-encrusted finger in his ear. He was quite used to human noise: he had neither quiet nor privacy in his mud patch. But this was the first time he'd gone through the bazaar, with all of its alien sights and sounds. But, he figured it was time to leave. He had his little vengeance against the image of the well-to-do and if he stayed any longer, he'd just get more-- _jealous_ of the things that the better people could throw their money away on.  

 

He had turned around to leave, the flies trailing behind him. Then he heard the screech again, louder this time, and he snapped his gaze to the right in annoyance. 

 

 It was a little red bird at the end of the stall. At least, some of its red feathers were visible under a cake of brown. Squashed in a grimy cage like the others, it screeched that Polly wanted a cracker over and over--no, another glance told him that it was male. 

 

In retrospect it did not make sense that he gravitated to this red bird. It was stupid, for one. And he had more than enough of stupid--his students before he taught them, the guards who made them move whenever they needed to hide the garbage, the pompous, vapid idiots in their gilded saddles, his fellow rabble. 

 

This parrot was even worse. One of his classmates had owned a parrot. Normally parrots mimicked what they heard, but this one could only repeat that one tiresome cracker line. And clearly the parrot was wasting his breath squawking for the cracker, as thin as he was.

 

 He couldn't stop noticing how-- _ugly_ the bird was. Apart from the color that shone dully from the grime, he had found everything about the bird repellent.

He could imagine him not covered in shit and still he'd be ugly. The beak was bulbous. He had thick black eyebrows and teeth--clearly he was a freak.

 

Not that he was feeling an almost--kindred spirit, or anything.

 

"Esteemed sir," the glee-crazed man practically threw himself on the ground--it was appropriate for him to bow this low to someone with money, but the excessiveness of the gesture was clownish. Because he was acting in haste and not thinking, he abandoned his more sophisticated approach he'd been building up for at least two years and regressed to full-on ridiculous. 

 

 The merchant had finished sharpening his blade and was at least half-paying attention. "For that scrawny red parrot, I will teach you everything I know about Letters!" he offered, the rational part of his mind telling his irrational side, <i>Rein yourself in, you fool.</i>

 

"What are you trying to pull, you cheat?! Get away from my merchandise!" The vendor brandished his wide, curved blade. The other man shrunk away. 

 

His rational side was validated. <i>That's what you get for not exercising caution.</i>

 

"I truly apologize, I got carried away--" he said with sincerity and a lot of embarrassment at his foolishness, bowing in a less servile way this time.

 

"Just get out of here!" the merchant accorded him more respect.

 

Jafar and his flies were about to do so when he heard the parrot's squawk again. An extra-grating screech this time. He turned to glare at the parrot, which he made a circus act of himself for, and he was feeling spite again, this time for the wretched parrot. Their brown and black eyes locked, and the parrot's eyes were filled with fear. Jafar's eyebrows raised. A fly whizzed past his nose. Something was wrong. "Though I must ask before I go, why does the parrot look so troubled?"

 

The parrot sweated. He looked at the blade.

 

"Because he's for tonight's stew," the merchant grinned.

 

The rational and irrational sides of Jafar fought bitterly. He restrained himself, but was still too eager. In any case, he did not know artifice and his desires were transparent.

 

"--But--surely you'll find a buyer for him. Why destroy your goods? It really is such a waste."

 

By this time, the merchant was closely guarding his wares, keeping an eye on the would-be 'customer'. The parrot had cost the merchant a lot of money--it'd been on the shelf since it was a fledgling. Customers were willing to pay a lot for exotic animals, and he ran a successful business. But no one wanted the reject parrot. It was only good business that he wanted to minimize losses. 

 

Jafar eventually picked up his books and left.

 

The sweaty crowds pushed and pulled. The air cooked. He taught again, but it was a rushed and poor lesson. The apple core he received only at the end, as an afterthought, reflected on its quality. That wretched parrot. He couldn't stop thinking about him--it. It was distracting him from his main goal which was to get food, and get more people to give him food. He had no time for this stupidity..!

 

 It was so idiotic, screeching over and over that same wretched line, trapped in its wretched, filthy cage and awaiting its end---

 

Jafar's irrational side pushed one last time--consumed him, overpowered his reason. No thanks to that sentimental seed the old woman planted. He found himself running back to the bazaar.

 

The merchant cried, "Stop the thief!"

 

The people gawked at another circus.

 

In this city, theft was punished harshly. Jafar had always been a law-abiding man. Destitution did not mean depravity, and he had never crossed the line. 

 

He couldn't remember how he got out with his head still attached, as it had all been a blur of running, crawling, hiding behind whatever object would hide him, but somehow, he made it. 

 

Now he was finally out of the mud, safe---in the desert. 

 

 Jafar glared at the red bird in its cage. How could he, always patient, never stupid, do something so impatient and stupid? On account of a little red bird..! So, he was irrational. But never had he allowed himself to be so seized by passion that he'd do something that he couldn't fix.

 

Holding the grimy cage with one hand, and setting down his books he opened the cage door and held his bony, dirty hand out to the red bird. _Expectantly_ , _like I-went-through-a-lot-for-you-so-you'd-better-come-out!_

 

The filthy parrot stared in stupid shock at the open door, the man, his hand. 

 

At first he didn't come out, half-expecting the merchant's blade to appear, and wide-eyed, stuck out his beak tentatively.

 

"Are you coming out or what?-!" the man rasped, motioning emphatically with his hand. The bird squawked in fear and squeezed himself out of the cage, the friction scraping off a layer of filth. Finally out! He flopped unsteady into the man's hand. 

 

The waste of birds wasn't normally brown..what had that merchant been feeding him? He scraped off the dried waste from his feathers, but added his own. And then he tried cleaning that off. The bird fidgeted under his nails, squawked, and suddenly flapped his long-cramped wings. Jafar pulled back and watched the bird. He walked in a circle of grime in Jafar's hand. He hopped a few times. He flapped again. He hovered for a few seconds above Jafar's palm. He dropped. And hovered again. Jafar found himself grinning in some kind of giddiness when the red bird jumped off his hand and flew a short distance to the space between his swarthy shoulder-blade and his neck. He then plopped there and made himself at home.

 

It was absurd. 

 

Just out of an _impulse._  

 

But--yes, it was too late to bring the bird back, wasn't it? It was too late to return. He'd brought the mess on himself. So Jafar and the little red bird went forward. No food, no water, only the storming sands ahead.

 


End file.
